1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to two-way messaging systems. More particularly, it relates to a two-way wireless voice messaging system in which custom voice messages may be recorded and then transmitted as unique codes.
2. General Background
Two-way text messaging systems having limited capabilities have been recently introduced on a commercial basis. Some such two-way text messaging systems allow a calling party, if desired, to append one or more custom text reply messages to a phone number or voice message which is then transmitted to a messaging receiver of a called party. The called party then may review the incoming page and select, as his response, one of the custom reply messages added by the calling party and which was appended to the incoming page before transmission. If the calling party does not append a custom reply message to the phone number or voice message, the called party can reply with one of a selected number of predetermined responses stored in memory in his messaging device. In such systems, the called party usually then transmits back his selected response to a central "mailbox" operated by the paging company or other communications company. The calling party can then call this "mailbox" to retrieve the response. For example, the calling party, "A", may wish to contact a business associate, "B", in order to arrange a meeting place for a business meeting. "A" may then place a call to the associate's messaging device and leave a message, "I would like to arrange to meet with you today at 2:00 P.M. Where should we meet?". In addition to this voice message, the calling party, "A", could then append one or several responses from which he would like the associate to select; e.g., "[Calling party's (A's)] office", "[Associate's (B's)] office", "Dans La Lune Cafe", etc. The voice message and appended custom reply are then transmitted to the messaging device of the business associate "B". Upon reviewing the incoming message, the associate "B" may then select from one of the aforementioned three appended custom messages, which he then transmits to the "mailbox" of the paging company's network operating center for storage and later retrieval by the calling party "A". Alternatively, if the calling party "A" does not originally append a custom reply message, the associate "B" may select one of a number of predetermined responses stored in memory in his messaging device and transmit such selected response for storage at the network operating center.
Importantly, in some of such systems, the prerecorded messages are transmitted as compact codes on the order of as little as one byte of data, in order to save air time costs to the user and to reduce traffic on the network. It will be understood that this "coding" is only readily possible for those responses which are prerecorded in the messaging device's memory at the time of manufacture and thus previously associated with a unique code. Thus, when the network operating center receives the unique code from the messaging device, it will recognize the message associated with the code and replay the appropriate response associated therewith. A drawback with such a system is that the selection of prerecorded messages which may be transmitted in response is quite limited.
Partly in response to such limitations, true two-way messaging has been proposed recently wherein the user of the receiving messaging device may indeed respond to a voice message with either a customized prerecorded or live voice message. One example of such system is set forth in U.S. Ser. No. 09/109,263 entitled "System and Method for the Creation of Customized Voice Responses in a Two-way Messaging Network" (Parvulescu & Zidel), which is assigned to the assignee of the present application and is incorporated by reference herein. In the system shown therein, the messaging device user cannot only reply to an incoming message with a prerecorded message stored in the messaging device memory by the manufacturer, but can record his own message, which is digitized and encoded and then transmitted back to the caller's messaging device (if the caller has a two-way messaging device) or to a network operating center for subsequent retrieval by the caller. In another embodiment, the messaging device user can create a custom message and append same to one of the prerecorded messages before transmission. Such "true" two-way messaging systems allow flexibility in the content of voice messages transmitted along with the added attraction of allowing the called and calling parties to actually hear the other's voice. However in all these systems, the entire message is transmitted to the caller's messaging device, and as such messages may comprise as much as two to twenty kilobytes, it is not always economical and efficient to transmit voice messages, particularly during times when traffic volume over the messaging network is heavy. Other examples of similar systems may be seen in U.S. Ser. No. 08/577,797 (filed Dec. 22, 1995) for "Two Way Messaging System with Non-Real Time Voice Compression and Decompression" (Parvulescu & Zidel), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,410 for "Two-Way Voice Messaging Terminal Having a Speech to Text Converter" (Parvulescu & Zidel) (issued Mar. 3, 1998), both of which are assigned to the assignee of the present application, and incorporated by reference herein.
So, while "live" voice messages are preferable to many users, because prerecorded messages consume less network time and capacity, and are therefore more economical, there are some times when it is more desirable to those same users to respond with prerecorded voice messages. However, again, while these latter systems make efficient use of the messaging network by transmitting prerecorded voice messages as smaller sized codes, they do not allow for the user to transmit true custom recorded voice messages.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a two-way voice messaging system which would allow the user to combine the flexibility of the aforementioned systems, allowing for the creation of true customized voice messages, with the efficiency and economy of those systems which transmit prerecorded voice messages as unique compact codes.